MotorSport Legends Issue 2

MotorSport Legends T H E M A G A Z I N E T H AT B R I N G S Y O U R M O T O R S P O R T M E M O R I E S B A C K T O L I F E www.motorsportlegends.com.au

John Harvey The touring car years, including winning Bathurst with Peter Perfect

RICHO’S ROCKET!

ex-Allan Grice A9X Torana gets a new home

Wet, wet, wet, Adelaide!

Volume #1 Issue #2

May/July 2008 $6.95

ISSN 1835-5544

JB headlines Island Classic

Quarterly magazine

The car that introduced a Kiwi legend to Australia

T H E M A G A Z I N E T H AT B R I N G S Y O U R M O T O R S P O R T M E M O R I E S B A C K T O L I F E

Contents Editorial Welcome to the second edition of Motorsport Legends.

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News 06-11 Repco-Brabham on display at the new National Sports Museum and all of the news from the historic scene.

Grice A9X back on track 12-16 Tony Sawford restores the Torana raced in the late ’70s by the ‘King of Privateers’ and takes on Group C. Richo’s Rocket 18-25 The ‘Sidchrome Mustang’ – the car that first showed Australia just how good this Kiwi really is.

Historic Classes 26-28 In the first instalment of this feature, Brian ‘Brique’ Reed takes a closer look at the regulations of historic racing in Australia.

Phillip Island Classic 30-31 All of the action from the biggest historic meet in the Southern Hemisphere.

Bathurst Easter Festival The historics come out to play on the Mountain.

32-33

The story of ‘Slug’ 34-41 In part two of this classic Australian motorsport journey, Harvey talks of his move from speedway to road racing.

Memories of Barry Oliver The doyen of commentary remembers Adelaide ’91 and Bathurst ’92.

Volume 1 Issue 2

42-47

Foges’ Flashback 48-50 Foges pays tribute to Phillip Island racing circuit and drives a replica from the 1928 Australian Grand Prix.

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Contributors in this issue Darren House Motorsport Legends’ resident nostalgia expert takes a trip down memory lane with Jim Richards and his Sidchrome ‘stang and rediscovers Gricey’s Craven Mild A9X. He also breaks the news on the return of HDT Special Vehicles to its spiritual home.

John Doig Simply known as ‘Doigy’ to his mates, John is a master of motor racing photography. He has been shooting the sport for more years than he cares to remember. This publication – along with many others – owes much of its success to his talents.

Grant Nicholas From PR at Calder Park Raceway to writing for many of this country’s best publications, Grant has done it all. We promise you that his second instalment of the John Harvey story is every bit as good as the first.

T H E M A G A Z I N E T H AT B R I N G S Y O U R M O T O R S P O R T M E M O R I E S B A C K T O L I F E

Managing Editor Allan Edwards Pole Position Productions Address: PO Box 225 Keilor, Victoria, 3036 Phone: (03) 9331 2608 Fax: (03) 8080 6473 Email: admin@motorsportlegends.com.au Website: www.motorsportlegends.com.au Artist/Design House Natalie Delarey Raamen Pty Ltd (03) 9873 8282 Contributors Darren House, Grant Nicholas, Brian Reed, Mark Fogarty Photographers Autopics.com.au John Doig/Torque Photos Advertising Manager David Brown DB Media & Marketing Phone: (03) 9762 7018 Mobile: 0408 562 962 Email: dgbmedia@bigpond.net.au Motorsport Legends is printed by Impact Printing Pty. Ltd. Melbourne

Material in Motorsport Legends is protected by copyright laws and may not be reporoduced in any format. Motorsport Legends will consider unsolicited articles and pictures; however, no responsibility will be taken for their return. While all efforts are taken to verify information in Motorsport Legends is factual, no responsibility will be taken for any material which is later found to be false or misleading. The opinions of the contributors are not always those of the publishers.

MotorSportLegends

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CLASSIC

Lines Welcome to the second edition of Motorsport Legends magazine.

Motorsport Legends includes coverage of Australia’s historic motor racing scene and motorsport nostalgia.

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t’s been a fun ride over the past three months since we launched Australia’s only magazine dedicated to motor racing nostalgia and the local historic scene.

We have received plenty of great feedback and also some suggestions of things we can improve.

All I can say is keep letting us know what you want and we will endeavour to do our best to meet your needs.

The recent Phillip Island Classic was an awesome meeting with over 500 historic racing cars competing.

I’ve been lucky enough to attend this meeting a number of times throughout the past decade and it never ceases to amaze me just how each year seems to be bigger and better than the one before it.

The historic motor racing scene in Australia sure is healthy at the moment.

A quick stroll down pitlane always turned into an hour as you always seemed to bump into one Australian racing legend or another; each of them were happy to stop and reminisce about days gone by regardless of whether you were a fellow racing legend, a journalist or a member of the public.

The owners of the cars were also happy to take the time to chat about the history of their machines.

There isn’t enough space in this column to list all of the legends that I bumped into at the Island, but one that I was

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Top: Allan Edwards with John McCormack in the pits. Above: The Motorsport Legends girls at our display at the Island.

particularly pleased to see was John McCormack (pictured above in the pits with yours truly). John was a legend in the Formula 5000 Tasman days and although I am just a little too young to remember those days in great detail, I am well aware of the legendary status that John was considered.

I must say that having met him in person at the Island he is a true gentleman and had no problem in chatting to someone who was just a wide-eyed kid during his hey day.

I should also thank all of those people who took the time to visit us at our little stand at the Island.

Again, your positive feedback makes it worth all of the hard work. Special thanks also must go to Deb and Joy who spent many hours in the heat looking after the stand.

The weekend following the Phillip Island Classic, like many Australian motor sport fans, I attended the

Australian Grand Prix and was disappointed to hear all of the negative comments surrounding its future.

If you believed some of those supposedly ‘in the know’ then 2010 (when the current contract runs out) may be the last time Formula One comes to Melbourne.

The really sad part about that is no one has asked the question ‘what would happen to the Australian Grand Prix?’

While the AGP has been held as a round of the FIA Formula One World Championship since 1985, the event itself has a much longer history that dates back to the 1920s.

What would happen if a contract extension for the F1s doesn’t happen?

I guess there would be those who would suggest that Australia holds a Formula Three race and invite the world’s best youngsters in a similar scenario to the International Formula Three Grand Prix held in Macau each year.

But may be we should think outside of the square. How good would it be if we could hold the AGP as an historic race and invite all of the owners of classic Formula Ones down to somewhere, like say, Phillip Island, to race? The event could even be held as a handicap event with cars from different eras… just a thought! Until next time, drive safely on the road and the track, Allan Edwards, Managing Editor

REPCO BRABHAM

The Repco Brabham BT19 is now on display at the new National Sports Museum at Melbourne’s famous MCG.

REPCO BRABHAM BT19 NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE NATIONAL SPORTS MUSEUM

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n line with Repco’s iconic status as an Australian pioneer of international motor racing, Australia’s largest automotive retail and trade supplier of automotive parts and accessories has made a major contribution to Australia’s first National Sports Museum.

Repco has agreed to provide Sir Jack Brabham’s world conquering Formula One car, the Repco Brabham BT19, to the National Sports Museum, located within the Olympic Stand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

This immaculately preserved Repco Brabham BT19 represents a significant part of Australia’s sporting history along with the successful history of Repco, when the Australian company took on the world and raced to the top with their in-house designed and manufactured engine, coupled with Sir Jack Brabham’s outstanding chassis design.

The Repco Brabham BT19 is the

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only Formula One car to have raced to a World Championship bearing both the driver’s and the constructor’s name, when Sir Jack Brabham won the World Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship titles in 1966.

Repco management said it is honoured to be contributing such a significant part of Australia’s motor racing history to the National Sports Museum, which will also exhibit some 2,300 items covering this country’s rich and diverse sporting history. Located in Australia’s sporting capital, the National Sporting Museum exhibits the country’s most comprehensive sporting collection, celebrating the important place that sport holds in Australian life.

According to Repco Chief Executive Officer, John Moller, “All of us at Repco are proud of this company’s highly successful motor racing heritage. By displaying the Repco Brabham BT-19 at the National Sports Museum, we are able to share

our pride in taking on the world and winning with Sir Jack Brabham with all Australian sports enthusiasts. We know that this car will be a highlight during any visit to this outstanding new sports museum and we encourage sports enthusiasts from Australia and all over the world to be sure to visit the National Sports Museum.”

Opened to the public on Thursday March 13, Australia’s sports fans are able to gain a close-up look at this magnificent car, which remains in immaculate running order thanks to the meticulous maintenance conducted by ACL Chief Engineer Nigel Tait. He is also an old friend of the car, as he also worked on the same Repco Brabham BT-19 with Sir Jack Brabham on the track in 1965.

Nigel has been responsible for its preservation and exhibition use since 1986 and is handing the car to the National Sports Museum in its usual pristine running condition.

Motorsport A4 flyer indd 1

1/5/08 12:37:34 PM

RETRACING HISTORY

Hamilton’s Lola T430 has been fully restored and is now being raced in New Zealand by new owner, David Abbott.

The streets of Cowes in Phillip Island returned to yester-year with vintage and classic cars making their way through the seaside village.

CAVALCADE RETRACES HISTORY

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any people may not have realised that Victoria hosted two Grands Prix in March.

One was the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne. The other was a re-run of the very first Grand Prix held in Australia.

Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce (VACC) sponsored the 80th anniversary of the 1928 Australian race, as part of the Phillip Island Classic meeting – the largest historic motor racing meeting ever staged in Australia.

The 80th anniversary of the ‘Australian Grand Prix’ was held on March 8, 2008.

As part of the celebrations of this milestone, 80 pre-war cars drove from the current Phillip Island Grand Prix Track to Cowes.

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En route, the cars and drivers wound back the clock, when they followed the course of the original public street circuit, which has since been tarred.

Featuring in the cavalcade was an Austin 7 which has the engine and gearbox from Captain Arthur Waite’s original car that won the 1928 race, known then, as the ‘100 Miles Road Race’. Captain Waite won the race at an average speed of 59 miles an hour (95km/h).

When the cavalcade reached the main street in Cowes, it formed a display of classic sports and racing cars from around the world. The line up provided a unique opportunity for enthusiasts to take a trip down memory lane.

On show were priceless classic models including Bentley, Bugatti, MG, Riley, Delage and Lagonda.

In return, the car owners and drivers relished the opportunity to discuss their pride and joys.

“It was a truly magnificent sight to see these elegant and beautifully maintained cars drive into Cowes.

We thank the drivers and owners for generously bringing these priceless machines out and on show,” VACC General Manager, Communications and Marketing, Tim O’Brien, said.

“Our aim was to bring the cars to the public and judging by the response, it worked. We were pleasantly surprised to see how many people were there. From what I saw, it seems that everyone in Cowes came out to see the cars.”

Organisers are hoping this annual event will, in future years, include a short dash along the streets of Cowes and later a 3km competitive speed trial.

HDT SPECIAL VEHICLES

Peter Champion (right) has purchased the HDT Special Vehicles moniker and has started building VE Commodores using cues from HDT Special Vehicles of the past.

HDT SPECIAL VEHICLES COMES HOME!

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DT Special Vehicles has returned from Sydney to its spiritual home of Melbourne following Peter Champion’s recent purchase of the iconic automotive brand.

Champion – a Peter Brock aficionado who owns more than 35 Brock road and race cars that are housed in a dedicated museum in his home town of Yapoon on the central Queensland coast – recently held an open day at the new premises at 60 Charter Street, Ringwood, Victoria.

“I was fortunate enough to purchase HDT last July from Len and Sid Pennisi and I am just so grateful that I got the opportunity to buy it,” Champion said.

“Everybody knows what those three little letters mean.”

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Champion indicated that he brought HDT back to Melbourne because Victoria is the homeland of HDT. “There are more Brock fanatics and more older cars down here; a lot of people are pretty excited about it coming down here.”

Part of the open day was to gauge HDT owner response to a new range of HDT Special Vehicles that Champion hopes to market. Based on the VE Commodore, the cars will feature design cues from the original Brocktweaked cars, as well as substantial engine and suspension upgrades.

“Today is also about seeing if we have something to go forward with in keeping the HDT name alive,” Champion said.

“I want to build something in memory of Peter Brock, but with

a little more horsepower than the original cars have got. I thought we’d build one of these cars and put it to the biggest critics out there, which would be the HDT and Brock car club guys.

They are the people who will tell me if I am on the right or wrong path.”

Known as ‘New Generation’, the prototype features similar bodywork and striping to the VC HDT Commodore, and just to top it off, Champion has – at great expense – sourced Irmscher wheels, only this time they are in 20-inch diameter rather than the original car’s 15-inch rims. The prototype also features a bonnet scoop styled from later model Brock-designed machines.

A version based on the VH SS Group 3 is underway and other tribute models are also part of the grand plan;

Champion is even planning to build a VE Commodore ute under the HDT Special Vehicles brand that may be raced by James Brock.

however, Champion says he will see how the public reacts before building a blue VK-based version.

Champion revealed a ute is also on the cards, which could signal HDT’s return to the track.

“We’re talking to James Brock about a future highway ute and then we may do the race ute thing,” he said.

However, Champion all but ruled out an entry into the V8 Supercar Series.

“I am definitely not interested in V8

Supercars. I think we’d all expect too much to see HDT there, but hey, I’ll never say never.”

Meanwhile, Champion says his Brock Museum, known as Champions Brock Experience, is doing well.

“It’s getting a lot of support. We’ve had grown people walk out of there crying because they said it is such a spiritual experience to see the life of Peter Brock – 39 years from start to finish.

“Tiger Airways has started a direct

service Melbourne to Rockhampton; it’s 2.5 hours and $250 return and Virgin is doing a direct service Sydney to Rockhampton.

“We have also bought an accommodation centre at Yapoon right on the beach, which can cater for 30 people if car clubs want to come up.

“We are also looking at picking people up from the airport and dropping them at the accommodation.”

– Darren House

Tony Sawford is quite competitive in today’s Group C class.

STORY BY DARREN HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHS BY WWW.AUTOPICS.COM, JOHN DOIG/TORQUE PHOTOS

GRICE A9X HAS A NEW HOME! The Craven Mild Torana A9X will continue to race on in the hands of enthusiast racer Tony Sawford.

The Craven Mild Torana was one of the most competitive on the track in the hands of leading privateer, Allan Grice.

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ALLAN GRICE A9X

The Craven Mild Torana was popular with the crowd.

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ony Sawford is a self confessed Torana nut.

More precisely, he’s an A9X nut.

Sawford’s obsession with the A9Xs began with a road-going version of Holden’s legendary muscle car but it wasn’t long before he added an historic Group C racer to his collection. And his wife, Chiomi Gengre, also owns an ex-HDT A9X sedan of her own.

“When the Group C category took off I began looking for a car to race and I started with the ex-Marshall Brewer hatchback,” Sawford told Motorsport Legends. Not long after, Sawford learned through the A9X club that an ex-Allan Grice/Craven Mild Racing Group C car was for sale. After a quick trip to Canberra to inspect the car, a deal was done, but Sawford was forced to sell the Brewer machine to finance his new acquisition.

Though immediately interested in the Grice Torana, Sawford admits that, at the time, he would have preferred a Holden Dealer Team car.

“I was more of a Brock fan back in the day,” he said. “I was looking, as everyone does, to find a HDT car but they are pretty much tied up and out of everyone’s reach, dollar-wise. The Bob Jane A9X was another car that I used to follow around. “(But) this was cheap enough and a

good enough buy and it was raced by one of the big name drivers, Allan Grice, who was a prominent driver along with Bob Morris – so I gave it a go.”

Though uncovering the car’s full history has proved difficult, Sawford has gathered some clues about its past life.

“From my knowledge, my car started life in 1978. It was built by Craven Mild Racing to compete in the Sandown and Bathurst enduros,” Sawford said.

In 1979 it became Allan Grice’s Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) car, but “towards the end of the year, just before Bathurst, Allan Grice wrote-off both my car and the spare car within two weeks of each other”.

“Craven Mild Racing then bought

Tony Sawford is a selfconfessed Torana nut!

the ‘Bonds Gotcha-sponsored Torana and used it to re-shell my car and they sourced another car to replace the other A9X,” Sawford continued.

“My car went to Bathurst 1979 as the spare and the other car was re-log booked as a new vehicle.”

Sawford believes Grice used the other A9X in the Mount Panorama enduro, teamed with open-wheeler star Alfredo Costanzo, the pair finishing in fourth place place eight laps behind the winning A9X of Peter Brock and Jim Richards.

While other Holden competitors – including his new and short-lived Craven Mild Racing team-mate Bob Morris – had switched to VB Holden Commodores for the start of the 1980 ATCC, Grice continued to use an A9X (thought by Sawford to be the Bathurst car) to compete in the early rounds before it was damaged in a major crash at Oran Park.

According to Sawford’s sources, Craven Mild Racing sold his car at the end of the 1979 season to someone in Sydney, who actually drove it around as a road car.

It then passed through several owners’ hands before ending up in Canberra in around 1992, where it was campaigned in Sports Sedan events.

The car was then sold to another Canberra resident who raced it in club events before laying it up in his garage. ❯ MotorSportLegends

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ALLAN GRICE A9X

TO RACE OR NOT TO RACE… An incident at the 2007 Historic Sandown meeting fuelled the debate over whether historically significant competition vehicles should continue to race or be safely stored away in museums.

Sawford’s A9X hit the steel safety barrier exiting turn one early in qualifying, causing significant damage and eliminating the classic old Torana from the event.

“It was caused by a lack of ability and too much ambition,” said Sawford, with refreshing honesty.

“The tyres I am running on are fairly old now; they haven’t got as much grip as they used to have and they take a lot longer to come on,” he explained.

“I went down the front straight on about the third lap of qualifying and I braked reasonably early because I knew I had cold tyres and they were a bit slippery. As I got to the corner I was going too slow, so I nailed it a bit harder than what I probably would have normally and as I went around the corner the back started to step out.

“I started to apply opposite lock and thought, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got this’, but as soon as I did that the back started going right out. The tyres just weren’t hot enough and there wasn’t enough grip. “I put my foot on the brake but I was

already heading inboard and the left-hand front corner hit the guard rail, and the car ended up on top of it.”

The impact bent a chassis rail and destroyed the radiator support panel, skirt, front guard, nose cone and spoiler.

Though disappointed, Sawford remained unconcerned.

“Everything is fixable if you want to put the time into it,” he said, matter of factly. “I had a panel shop pull the rail straight and then I just welded the skirt and radiator support panel back on, and did a repaint job on the whole car.

“Maybe it should be a museum piece but it is a shame; there are a lot of guys out there who have a lot of money and they have bought a lot of cars and they just have them on showroom floors and people have to go to the showroom to see them. In my opinion they don’t have to race to win, they (should) just get out there and circulate around the track. Don’t get in any trouble and everything will be okay.

“My crash was just one of those things. I stuffed up so I have got to cop it on the chin. It wasn’t like somebody hit me, or someone had dumped oil on the track in front of me. I just hope it doesn’t get so bad that I can’t afford to repair the thing because I do like racing it.”

Sawford bought the car in 2004 and has been racing it ever since.

Despite the multiple owners and different applications, Sawford says the car was relatively intact and in reasonable condition upon inspection.

“It wasn’t too bad for a 30-year-old motor car,” he said.

“It had the original engine, the original gearbox and the original rear-end, though it hadn’t been used for at least six years. The gearbox had a little bit of surface rust internally because the oil had dropped to the bottom, so I stripped it and the engine right down and started from scratch to make sure they were okay.

“The body was original, and as far as I can tell, the rollcage is also original. The previous owner had registered the car so he had to put in standard road seats and seat belts, and he had to remove the rollcage side intrusion bars. The bars were included in the spares package, so I refitted them and replaced the road seat with a modern-day race seat; however, I am still searching for an original late-’70s version.

“It also had the original racing harness,

Allan Grice was always quick with a ‘quotable quote’ for the television audience.

Nothing too high-tech, but you can’t argue with results.

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Gricey was never scared to give the A9X everything it had, even at Bathurst’s infamous Dipper.

but it was well out of date, so I fitted a new one and I refitted the original dash, which bolts over the standard Holden dash. The instruments aren’t original – I am running Smiths’ gauges at the moment, but I am in the process of getting the right tacho for it and putting VDO gauges for the oil temperature pressure back into it.”

Sawford says the body came with a

few scratches and dings and he put on few more himself; however, the car’s appearance was pretty much as Grice last raced it.

“Craven Mild Racing took the signwriting off when they sold it, but the gold, white and black paintwork remained and it stayed that way until I bought it,” Sawford explained.

“The last guy who had the car placed

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other vinyl signage on it so I just peeled that off and put Craven Mild vinyl signage back on.”

However, a significant crash at last year’s Historic Sandown in November prompted a full restoration of the paint and bodywork over the following Christmas period.

“I carried out a complete respray of the ❯ whole car, straightened out a few of

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ALLAN GRICE A9X

the panels and made it look a lot nicer and shinier because it was hard to get a luster on the previous paintwork,” Sawford said.

“As I stripped it back, I could see the red and silver Bonds Gotcha paintwork underneath.”

A mechanic by trade, Sawford says he does as much work on the car as he can.

“I haven’t got a huge amount of money to throw at it, so I have to do the work myself,” he explained. “The only thing I don’t do is the machine work because I don’t have any tools to do reSawford has gone to every boring or anything like that, so I get a mate of mine to do it. We effort to make sure the car looks as original as possible. have a few lathes and other machining tools at work that allow me to do some fabrication work.”

Sawford confessed to being “a bit lax” on maintenance due to financial constraints.

Sawford is not only the driver, but he “I change valve springs and valves probably every two years and also spanners the A9X himself. do bottoms ends, re-ring and change bearings probably every four years,” he said. “I used to run an old style sump and it was getting a fair bit of oil surge at Phillip Island and the bearings nipped-up a bit. The crank was fine so I just put another set of bearings in it, but I pull the sump off and check the bearings every two years when I do the heads.”

Sawford said with Chiomi also racing her A9X, money gets a little tight.

“She puts her money into her car and I put my money into my car and we usually try to share the load a little bit when we get to a race meeting,” he explained. “It’s not so bad because we only need one set of spares – for example, we only need one spare Island when Chiomi was racing; we lunched an engine so gearbox because it fits both cars. We had an issue once at Phillip we took it back home, swapped over to the spare engine and finished the weekend.”

Sawford says his 308 Holden V8 engine produces around 400hp at the flywheel.

“I believe the figures back in the day were around 370380hp, but with modern technology and cam timing we have been able to pump it up a little bit more,” he explained. “Most of the Torana guys have around the same amount of power.”

A Borg Warner Super T10 four-speed gearbox sits behind the Aussie V8 and mates to a Holden HQ style Salisbury differential, rather than the smaller and more fragile banjo type fitted to Torana L34s.

“The diffs are not indestructible like a (Ford) nine-inch diff, but with the amount of horsepower we have got, they do the job reasonably well,” Sawford said.

“Winton is very taxing on the car because it’s a tight, gear-changing track, so you put a lot of load on the gearbox.

It’s second and third gear all the way around with constant ● ● ● changing up and down. I feel sorry for the guys with L34s because they have got Aussie four-speeds and banjo diffs.”

Sawford describes the Torana’s handling as “pretty good” Rob Southouse (with new tyres fitted – see breakout), adding that the car 8 Stafford Street, Huntingdale 3166 “squirms around a bit”.

“We had Phil and Peter Brock racing them in 2006 at Tel: 9543 5050 9544 4402 Phillip Island and that was a sensational experience,” he Fax: 9544 1742 said. “Phil’s comment – he was racing HQs at the time – was it was like a HQ on steroids. HQs don’t have much grip, they tend to wander around a fair bit. The Torana has got a whole heap more power, a lot more grip and a lot more brakes and they go around corners pretty well, but ML they tend to float around a lot as well.”

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RICHO’S BEAST There is no argument that Jim Richards is an icon of Australian motorsport, but it wasn’t always that way.

Motorsport Legends talks with Jim about coming across the Tasman as a youngster and racing his Ford 302 Boss Mustang.

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JIM RICHARDS

JIM RICHARDS

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t’s hard to image Jim Richards as anything other than a winning race driver.

But the multiple Australian Touring Car, Bathurst 1000, Carrera Cup and Targa Tasmania champion and the man believed by many to be the world’s greatest touring car driver, has a vivid recollection of the time when he dared not even dream of winning races.

As the 1960s were drawing to a close, Richards was a battling privateer whose racing was all about having fun.

“I started off in New Zealand coming last,” Richards told Motorsport Legends.

“My outright quest was never to win races because racing in the class that I was in, I couldn’t win. So my goal was to drive the car as fast as I could and have a good time; enjoying the racing.

And that’s the same way that I have gone about every other race I have done out of Australia.

“To say winning wasn’t important isn’t quite right. Yes, winning was important but it was never a priority. If I was good enough on the day and the car went alright and I won, that was a bonus from competing. (But) if you are thinking you are going to win every time you go out, you are going to be disappointed most of the time. So we just built the cars that we wanted to build and raced them as hard as we could.”

However, things were about to change, big time.

Nineteen-Seventy signaled the dawn of a new decade and a 1969 Ford Mustang – later to be universally known as the

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The ‘Sidchrome Mustang’ – the car that changed both Richards’ (above left) life and the Australian motorsport scene.

‘Sidchrome Mustang’ – signalled the dawn of a new motor racing era.

Richards had scored victory in one of the New Zealand Saloon Car Championship’s smaller capacity classes but he says it was the winner of the 4200-6000cc class that was considered the champion. Richards decided he wanted a car that could compete for outright honours.

“I was driving for a gentleman by the name of Jim Carney,” Richards explained. “You could say he was a bit of a mentor. He was in his mid-50s and I was 18 or so. Jim was a wealthy guy who was engaged to a young lady that was racing and he started competing. He and I used to race together and in the end I started to drive his cars for him.

“We’d won the championship in the 1300-4200cc class racing an Escort and we decided to run the outright category, so we needed a bigger and better car. We’d gone to England to buy Broadspeed’s BDA Escort but the car

was crashed before it was due to come over to New Zealand, so all that fell apart. We then decided to build a Mustang.

“We approached Sidchrome Tools (to finance the project) and they said yes, so we went and bought a car from a car yard. It cost $5,500 for a Boss 302 Mustang that had done about 10,000km; the car was absolutely pristine.”

Why a Mustang? Richards explains: “My friend, Murray Bunn – who basically did all the machining, engine work and the car’s basic drawings – and I were both ‘Ford people’. I worked for a Ford Dealer, I’d raced HO Falcons and Capris and all that sort of stuff and the car that was winning most of the races at the time was a Mustang, so we just went that way.”

Richards took the big left-handdrive Ford to a barn on a little farm in Papakura, where he and Bunn tore it apart and proceeded to transform it into a racer.

“Murray was the guiding light of the Mustang,” Richards said. “He basically built the car with help from some other guys; Gordon Wiles, Brian Kidd, Brian McNabb and Lex Charles. It took a year to build part-time, after work and the car made its racing debut in 1972.”

As synonymous with the car as Allan Moffat and his Trans Am Mustang,

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for a year, back in 1971, was $12,000.

We went about $2,000 over our budget and Sidchrome was good enough to come to the party. So you are talking 14 grand to take a road car from the car lot, put it into a shed, spend a year working on it, and there was a race car.

“There was nothing really fancy about the engine when we first built the car. ❯

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Norm Beechey and his Monaro, and Bob Jane and his Camaro, Richards said at no time did he own the Ford.

“It was (initially) owned by Sidchrome as part of their sponsorship package,” said Richards. “I bought the car with their money; I built it with their money and I had to run it on their money. The total estimated cost to build and run the car

M A G A Z I N E

Running in a plain white livery after losing Sidchrome sponsorship, Richards says the car struggled in its final year.

“All of a sudden the phone was ringing – Lakeside, Perth, Oran Park – they wanted us to go and race at their track and they paid us start money. That was mind blowing compared to what we were used to” It was powered by a 351 Cleveland with Cleveland heads and four IDA Webers carburetors bored out to 51mm. It had Venolia pistons, 427 Chev conrods and a standard crank, and we offset ground the journals to make it six-litre.”

There was also a dry sump, a Bunnlightened flywheel, a Borg and beck triple plate clutch, a Super T-10 fourspeed gearbox and a nine-inch ’diff equipped with a Detroit Locker and Trans Am axles. There was also one Trans Am hub, and because another couldn’t be found, Bunn fabricated the other unit.

The rear suspension was standard other than a Watts linkage and double adjustable Koni shockers, while the front end was upgraded with 1966 Ford Thunderbird uprights and brake calipers.

“They were like the Girlock calipers; they run in the historic cars now; a little cast iron four-piston caliper, but bigger than the standard Mustang,” Richards said. “We thought they worked fantastically in those days because we weren’t used to anything better.”

“It was the same in regard to handling – there were probably lots of things wrong with it but I didn’t know anything different. The car was always 22

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an understeerer; it never oversteered.

An understeering car is easier to drive – when you can’t drive around a corner you slow down until you can,” Richards said, laughing.

Externally, the Mustang initially ran a conventional front air dam and wheel arch flares, together with a fiberglass bonnet and boot-lid. New Zealand rules allowed massive rubber and the Sidchrome Mustang ran Commonwealth Aircraft Corporationmade 15x15 rear and 15x12 front wheels. Australia mandated a maximum width of 10-inchs.

The interior gained an aftermarket steering wheel, instruments and driving seat, along with a chrome moly rollcage.

Though his car was constructed under very different circumstances to Allan Moffat’s Kar Kraft-built (US Ford factory team) Trans Am ’69 ’stang, Richards said the machines were very similar.

“We had a 351, Moffat had a 302. The diff that they used was the same; they both had leaf springs at the rear (and) the front suspension was the same.

Having looked at Allan’s Mustang later on, the cars were very, very similar,” Richards said.

Despite the financial limitations, Jim

said the Mustang was a reliable racer.

“We put it together well and the motor lasted a whole year. Just start it and away we went, although the first time out (at Bay Park in 1972), it ran the bearings because the lines from the boot-mounted oil tank to the engine were too small,” he said.

“Breakages only occurred because in the old days you never took things apart and analysed how they were working.

You drove it and drove it and drove it and drove it until something broke.

“Yes, we used to service the car – take the diff out, change ratios, take the rear hubs off and put them back on, and take the gearbox out – but you wouldn’t go through the race cars like you do now. And so eventually things got fatigued and a few things started to break. In the whole scheme of things, it was unbelievably reliable. In four years I reckon we only broke down four times, so it wasn’t that bad. It was just sometimes things happen.”

Richards said it took three or four meetings for the car to become a winner.

“We fixed the oil supply problem and the car was sort of on the pace but ❯ not quite there and that was mainly

JIM RICHARDS

Bob Jane in his Monaro leads Richards in his Mustang at Calder Park in 1975.

JIM RICHARDS

because of me. I knew I was racing against the legends of New Zealand motor sport – the guys that I looked up to – and I wasn’t quite sure how I would go, so I didn’t quite go well enough.

“The first time we had a win was at Levin; a short, tight, little racetrack about 80km out of Wellington. It’s not there now. Up until then we were just behind the front group and that was probably only because of a lack of confidence and me getting used to the car. But from that point on, we basically did nothing to the car and we were on the pace and always in the front group.”

In 1973 the Mustang’s specification changed in line with new NZ rules that allowed the engine to be moved back 12 inches into the cabin. Aluminium Gurney Weslake heads were also fitted to the 351 V8.

“The Gurney Weslake aluminium heads were only two valve but they were lighter and they were a nice little head,” Richards explained. “Whether or not 24

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That decision changed the course of Australian touring car history. they were any better than what we had I don’t know but we put them on and they worked well.

“We also fitted fuel injection, which was a Lucas mechanical unit modified

by Murray. He made a slide unit for it, and all of the manifolds.”

A new-look, incorporating a larger front spoiler and aluminium Europeanstyle box guard flares also appeared on the Mustang.

Richards won the title in 1973 but his deal with Sidchrome (New Zealand) concluded a year later, and that should have signalled the end of his association with the car.

“As part of the enticement for

Sidchrome to give us the money I said to them you can own the car, so at the end of the period you’ve got the car; you can sell it and basically recoup most of your money.

“I shouldn’t have said that because they didn’t want the car. If I had just said I wanted $14,000 to go racing they would have said, ‘here, away you go’. So silly me included it and suddenly they ended up with this car.

“They didn’t know what to do with it so the guy that I was working for at the time, Gerry Clayton, who was a used car dealer and an occasional sponsor of me and other drivers, bought the Mustang.

He contacted Sidchrome Australia to sponsor it and so we brought it to Australia in 1975.”

That decision changed the course of Australian touring car history, though what was about to unfold was unforeseen, especially by Jim. “(My intention) was to fly over to race at Sandown, leave the car somewhere

and it always cost twice as much as we thought.”

Rather than being on easy street, Jim remembers struggling to stay afloat.

“When I first headed across the Tasman I didn’t have a job, I worked on the car and I paid myself next to nothing,” he said. “I was scraping the bottom of the barrel just to make ends meet.

“A young guy named Don Harper, who was doing a little bit of work for us in New Zealand and worked for the same Ford dealership as I did, decided to come over to Australia so I employed him. The wages were terrible because I didn’t have enough money but he stood by us.

“He probably got sensible after working for me because although he went to America and worked for Carl Haas on the Formula 5000 cars and sports cars, he finally came back to Oz and settled here and now he is a computer programmer.”

Though it was getting long in the tooth, the Sidchrome Mustang proved competitive with younger and more sophisticated machines that had become part of the now very popular and lucrative Sports Sedan category. These machines included Ian Geoghegan’s Holden Monaro GTS 350, the Formula 5000-based Type 3 VW-Chevrolet of Bryan Thomson and Repco-Holden and then fly home again. I’d come back compared to what we were used to.

Charger of John Mc Cormack, Allan another time and run it somewhere else.

“So I then had to stay over and I said Moffat’s Cologne Capri and DeKon “We qualified fourth, I think, in to my wife, ‘we better sell the house’.

Chevrolet Monza, and Frank Gardner’s the dry and on the Sunday it poured We were young and we made the move Chevrolet Corvair. with rain and we won both the races because there was nothing really for us The Mustang could also match pace reasonably easily. in New Zealand apart from a mortgage. with the formidable and cashed-up Bob “No one had known who we were; Steve (son and later FPR V8 Supercar Jane Racing Team, which fielded Jane’s they had never heard of us before. But driver) was three years old, I think. I Monaro 350, the Torana-Chevrolet we had raced against Frank Gardner, went back, sold the house, packed up a driven by Frank Gardner and Ron Allan Moffat, Bob Jane, Bryan container, sent the container to Oz and Harrop’s EH Holden-Repco.

Thomson, Norm Beechey and most of here we are.”

By 1977, the ageing process and the good Australian guys because every With his own business and other financial constraints had taken their toll year the New Zealand promoters would priorities, Bunn remained in New on the once mighty Mustang. bring a few Australians to our series Zealand.

“The last year we ran the car it was around Christmas time.

Richards admits thinking, ‘Getting worn out,” Richards revealed. “We’d “We had raced against everyone, been paid to race, how good is this?’ but soon lost the Sidchrome sponsorship, and we competitive and beaten them most found that the appearance money didn’t painted it white where it had been red times in New Zealand, so we knew we go far in a country the size of Australia. just to change the colour but it looked were competitive but no one else knew.

“In those days we didn’t realize that terrible. It was pity but there was no “(But) when we won those couple of Lakeside (Queensland) was 2000km money.” races on the Sunday, all of a sudden the away and Perth was 4000km. We The car was sold to New Zealander phone was ringing – Lakeside, Perth, just hopped in our truck and started George Shewiery who raced it briefly Oran Park – they wanted us to go and driving,” Richards said. “Of course the but, more importantly, still owns the car race at their track and they paid us truck broke down all the time and we today and has plans to restore it in the ML start money. That was mind blowing got punctures. It was a real exercise near future.

Richards’ Mustang was competitive from day one with the best from the Australian scene, including Allan Moffat’s Trans Am Mustang, and the car was fairly reliable though even Jim struggled on three wheels.

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OLD TIMERS RELIVING PAST GLORIES STORY BY BRIAN REED PHOTOGRAPHS

BY JOHN DOIG/TORQUE PHOTOS

A closer look at historic racing classes in Australia. Historic motor racing is growing at an unprecedented rate, both in Australia and overseas, and in order to accommodate this expansion, CAMS, the governing body for motor sport in Australia, has introduced several new classes that cater for more recent competition vehicles. But before we get to them, let’s look at several of the old, established groups that for many years have been the lifeblood of the sport.

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GROUP JA – (VINTAGE CARS PRE 1931)

GROUP KA – POST VINTAGE THOROUGHBREDS (1931-1940)

This group caters for racing and sports cars with a competition history prior to December 31, 1930. Eligible vehicles are typical of early sports and racing car design and workmanship and includes such famous marques as Alvis 12/50, Bugatti Type 37 and Vauxhall 30/98 – classic cars of the vintage period. Whilst a proven race history is a requirement, consideration may also be given to cars that do not have an established competition background, but are of a type that appeared in competition prior to the end of 1930.

Specifically this group caters for the pre-World War 2 and early postWorld War 2 classically engineered factory racing and sports cars, but included also are local one-off ‘specials.’ These latter cars are required to have production car components from the pre-war period. Notable examples include Alfa Romeo 8C, H.R.G., Maserati 4CL, Jaguar SS100 and MGs of the period with a racing history between January 1, 1931 and December 31, 1949. In addition, Group Ka includes factory-constructed vehicles that were modified with production car engines from the pre-war period but constructed from major components manufactured prior to the end of 1940.

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HISTORIC CLASSES

GROUP JB AND KB These groups cater for ‘specials’ – cars more recently constructed, but designed and built in a way that fits a period and place of road racing up to the end of 1940. Replicas are not permitted.

Cars may be built using components from one vehicle (e.g. Ford V8), or a ‘special’ built from a composite of different makes (e.g. MG chassis and Hudson engine). Bodywork and overall appearance must be in the style of the period chosen and be compatible with the vehicles that race at that place and time. Australia has a rich cross section of cars, examples being MG, Chrysler and that company’s various derivatives and Austin 7 ‘specials.’

GROUP M RACING AND SPORTS RACING CARS (1961-1965) Vehicles in this group reflect the development of more advanced design features such as complex space frame and monocoque structures, sophisticated adjustable suspension systems and wide racing tyres. Group M caters for racing, sports racing and sports cars with a competition history between January 1, 1961 and December 31, 1965, although subsequent race history or, in certain instances, cars with no race history may be considered provided the specification of the vehicle is consistent with the general standard of technology and appearance of similar cars from the period. Examples from the Group M period are Lotus 18, Brabham BT15 and Elfin Mono.

GROUP LB – HISTORIC RACING AND SPORTS CARS (1941-1960) This classification reflects the post World War 2 period of technology extending from the first of the post-war designs through to the mid-engines vehicles of the 1950s. Sports and racing cars with a competition history from January 1, 1941 to December 31, 1960 are eligible, except for vehicles constructed from pre 1940 components which are eligible for classification in Group K. Special consideration may be given to vehicles constructed within this period but with a racing history established subsequent to this period, or in some cases without a racing history at all. A classic example of a group Lb racing car is the famous motorcycle-engine Cooper 500, and Australia has many examples of home grown racing cars powered by the early Holden six-cylinder engine.

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HISTORIC CLASSES

GROUP O – HISTORIC RACING AND SPORTS RACING CARS (1966-69) This group reflects the development of wide treaded racing tyre technology and its effect on suspension and chassis design, but stops short of the period when external aerodynamic devices became a major design feature with a significant impact on cornering performance. Formula 5000, Formula Ford and Formula Vee are excluded from this group. Cars with a competition with a competition history prior to December 31, 1969 are eligible, although consideration may be given to vehicles whose racing history falls outside this period, or are devoid of racing history. Brabham BT21A, Lotus 49 and Porsche 906 are classic examples of the Group O period.

GROUP P –RACING AND SPORTS RACING CARS (1968-1972) This group reflects an interesting era in technological advancement when aerodynamic aids were fitted, but treaded tyres as in Group O were still employed.

Slicks are therefore ineligible, and the group caters for a relatively small number of cars caught out by this unique period of development. A good local example of such a car eligible for Group P is the Rennmax Waggott.

GROUP Q-RACING AND SPORTS RACING CARS (1970-1977)

FORMULA 5000 Factory built cars specifically designed to Formula 5000 regulations (e.g. Lola T330) and other cars such as Australia’s Elfin MR8 and New Zealand’s McRae GM1 are examples of cars eligible for this class provided they raced in F5000 events prior to December 31, 1977. A clear line of history is

required – vehicles may not be constructed from damaged or discarded components, and it is recommended that owners present their vehicles in their “most significant” historical format. Only modifications compatible with the group period and to that particular vehicle will be accepted.

Slicks and wings are permissible in Group Q provided they are in keeping with the period. Some cars may be eligible for both Group P and Group Q – it is the owner’s prerogative to nominate the preferred classification group. Formula Fords fitted with outboard rather than inboard mounting springs and shock absorbers are also eligible for Group Q. Formula Ford examples include the Lola T440, and equivalent models from Royale, Van Diemen, etc.

“Where are the tin tops?”, I hear you say. They, along with a number of other sports and racing groups (including some newly approved ones) will be outlined in a future issue.

In the meantime, if you have any queries, contact CAMS (03 9593 7777) and the Historic Department will be happy to help you.

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A number of invited Formula One cars added spice to the huge field of Formula 5000s, including this awesome-looking Benetton.

Bowe returning to the seat of a Formula 5000 was one of the many highlights of the meeting.

Glenn Seton was another Touring Car Champion racing at the Island.

Jim Richards and Bob Jane were happy to sign autographs for their many fans.

PHILLIP ISLAND CLASSIC Australia’s Largest Historic Race Meeting

T

The largest historic motor race meeting ever staged in the Southern Hemisphere was held at Phillip Island over the Labour Day long weekend in March.

The Shannons Phillip Island Classic attracted a huge crowd and an entry of over 500 touring, sports and racing cars spanning the 1920s to 1980s, with more than 50 cars coming from overseas to take part, all of which were greeted by fantastic sunny weather conditions.

A highlight from the Porsche Museum in Germany was the first Australian appearance of the world’s most 30

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powerful sports car – the twin-turbo 12-cylinder 917-30 that produced up to 1580HP in qualifying tune when it steam-rolled the 1973 CanadianAmerican (Can-Am) sports car series.

The famous Porsche drew plenty of attention in the pits and all eyes were firmly fixed on the racetrack when Jim Richards took it for a handful of demonstration laps.

Another main attraction was the record field of 28 Formula 5000 and invited classic Formula One cars that entered the final round of the 2007/2008 Tasman Cup Revival Series, with recently retired V8 Supercar driver John Bowe at the wheel of the Lola T430 that Warwick Brown drove to

become the 1977 Australian Driving Champion.

He finished the three races with a fifth and a pair of sixth places. He set some blistering times in practice; however, he struggled to recapture that pace in the race following a scary wing collapse in practice that left him just a little circumspect.

Bowe, who was the Patron of the meeting, also raced a very rapid Brabham BT14.

The Formula 5000 races were won

by Chris Hyde who was driving the super fast McRae GM1, which was built by renowned race car driver and constructor, Kiwi Graeme McRae, who was also present at the circuit.

PHILLIP ISLAND CLASSIC

The big Sportscars also provided plenty of entertainment.

Bowe had a busy day driving in two categories.

Stubber’s immaculate Lola was a crowd-pleaser.

“The meeting also attracted the greatest line-up of driving legends ever assembled...”

The ex-Alan Jones Beatrice F1 made a great sight and sound as it roared down Gardner straight.

Phillip Island saw some of the best ever Formula 5000 racing.

The meeting also attracted to Phillip Island the greatest line-up of driving legends ever assembled at an Australian historic race meeting, with famous names attending including Le Mans winner Vern Schuppan, Australian Gold Star Driving Champions Bowe, Leo Geoghegan and Kevin Bartlett, Australian Grand Prix winners Frank Matich, John Goss and Alfredo Costanzo, former Touring Car champions Norm Beechey, Bob Jane, Jim Richards and Glenn Seton, fourtime Australian Hillclimb champion Alan Hamilton and Goggomobil Dart creator and former Buckle sports car designer, Bill Buckle.

There was an array of other great classic machines at the circuit for the meeting, including Peter Giddings 1930s P3 Alfa Romeo Grand Prix car, the ex-Alan Jones Beatrice and exMichele Alboreto Ferrari Formula One cars and Paul Stubber’s beautiful Lola Chevrolet sportscar.

Over 20 Group A and C touring cars also competed. The meeting also saw the final round of the Formula Junior

Tasman Series in which 38 Formula Juniors graced the famous island circuit.

The Phillip Island Classic meeting has arguably become the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of the Australian historic motor racing scene and all who were involved the organisation of the event should be congratulated. Roll on 2009!

ML

Peter Giddings’ 1930s Alfa P3.

Jim Richards’ demonstration laps in the Porsche 917-30 silenced the huge crowd.

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The Easter event marked the return of big fields and smaller cars to Bathurst and none of the spectators were complaining.

BATHURST EASTER BONANZA STORY BY GARRY O’BRIEN PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMES SMITH

The Easter Bunny had more than chocolate eggs in his basket for around 500 enthusiastic club races over the holiday weekend.

They were the lucky beneficiaries after over 1,000 expressions of interest, to be part of the inaugural Festival of Sporting Cars (FoSC) race meeting at Bathurst. Here was an opportunity for many that would not normally get to drive, let alone race, on the famed Mt Panorama circuit... and possibly on a yearly basis with a five year deal in place with a further five-year option as part of the deal.

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G

rass roots, clublevel motor sport returned to Bathurst with the Shannons Celebration of Motor Sport – 35 years since the last Australian Racing Drivers Club meeting and on the 70th Anniversary of the circuit being opened.

“In the spirit of amateur endeavour this is a strictly no-touch competition, with the only prizes being the satisfaction of having achieved a personal best,” said FoSC’s Charles Jardine.

All competitors took part in practice and familiarisation conducted by a group of champion Australian racing drivers known as The Masters and included Mal Brewster, Leo Geoghegan, Ray Gulson, John Leffler, Spencer

Terry Lawlor in his Porsche 911.

Martin, John Smith, Bruce Stewart, Warren Weldon and Garry Wilmington.

Despite a couple of hiccups where several of the qualifying sessions were circumvented by red flags, the organisers managed to get through 38 of the scheduled 40 events with only one premature race stoppage.

The whole event had a good feel about it from the start, with a relaxed atmosphere welcomed by all. But short snappy races, one after the other, might be good for the organisers and spectators, yet the drivers, typically, were a little frustrated – their races over before they could really get into the ‘groove’.

The mix of cars would satisfy most motor sport fans – Historic Sports, Historic Touring, Marque & Production Sports, Improved

Bill Meeke made for an awesome sight across the top of the Mountain in his Falcon Sprint.

BATHURST HISTORICS

Production, Regularity, and feature races for MGs and Mazdas. The meeting drew a glut of interstate racers including over 60 from Victoria and around 80 from Queensland – not to mention locals, South Australians and a few West Aussies.

Even the terminology reflected the nature of the weekend – competitive events rather than races, and no spare grid spots as they closed up to fill any vacant ones.

But like every meeting there were the stars and the hard luck stories. Bill Pye (Porsche GT3) qualified over 12 seconds faster than his nearest rival in the group called Sporting Panorama – and won his first three lap race by half a minute.

Sporting Panorama included Lotus Exiges, other Porsches, a hoard of Mazda MX5’s, Datsun 260Z’s and the like. Pye and co also took part in Mountain Marque which had been headed by Iain Pretty and his AC Cobra and Mort Fitzgerald in his MG V8 Roadster. Pye soon changed that!

Historic Touring Cars of the Group Nc variety took on various early to mid ’70s Sports Cars that included many Porsches in a group called Soft Tops vs Hard Tops.

Brad Tilley overcame a clash with a wayward Alfa in qualifying to push Bob Cox’s Ford Mustang to new heights since he rebuilt that car. Then

Ex-rugby star Jack Elsegood wasn’t scared to lift a wheel in his Falcon.

he forewent the final clash with the gearbox troubled Ford Falcon of ute racer Jack Elsegood just to watch.

Missing in the race action was the Garry Treloar Chev Camaro, which had a fire during qualifying. “I tried to drive it back to the pits, but the cabin filled with smoke and got hot very quickly,” the Victorian said. “But those new fire extinguishers worked great – I had it out before the fire marshals arrived.”

Meanwhile, there was some great competition behind the swift Fords, especially between the Greg Toepfer Holden Kingswoods, the Holden Toranas of Simon Phillips, Alf Bargwanna and John Harrison, plus the Porsche 911 of Terry Lawlor.

Stuart Littlemore QC was the first man into the first corner of the first event (for Historic Sports), but spun and ended up emersed in the sand trap. The race continued and every other driver acknowledged the local yellows, slowed (with arm extended), then continued on at race speed. Unfortunately for Littlemore the Morgan Plus 8 blew its engine in a later race.

Improved Production featured big fields where Victorian Rick Newman’s AU Falcon proved quicker than the local Mazda brigade. Scott Fleming’s RX7 pulled one win when Newman had a spin and also took out the featured all Mazda race. Fitzgerald

Garry Treloar’s Camaro on fire during qualifying.

Greg Toepfer in his Holden Kingswood battled all day with...

... Simon Phillips and a host of other fast Toranas.

downed Paul Trevethan’s GT V8 in the MG Invitation.

The Historic Tourers for mainly Nb cars and small capacity Nc was dominated by the 289 cu engined Fords of Bill Trengrove (Mustang) and Bill Meeke (Falcon Sprint). But among the chasers were several Ford Escorts and Cortinas, EH Holdens, a Studebaker, a Galaxie and even a Customline.

It was their last race that caused the red flag situation with heavy damage to the Mini of Ken Nelson and Jerry Lenstra’s Hillman Imp. But generally, damage was minimal considering the numbers. Yet there were a couple of rollovers but the respective Mazda and Nissan ventured out later – sans front and rear glass.

But perhaps the hardest luck yarn belongs with the unnamed gentleman who towed his enclosed trailer all the way from Victoria only to discover that ML he forgot to put the race car in it!

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STORY BY GRANT NICHOLAS PHOTOGRAPHS BY WWW.AUTOPICS.COM, JOHN DOIG/TORQUE PHOTOS & THE HARVEY FAMILY COLLECTION

In the second and final part of our feature on Australian motor racing’s quiet achiever, Motorsport Legends magazine picks up the story of John Harvey as he moves from the dirt track to road racing.

THE UNASSUM 34

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JOHN HARVEY

UMING HERO

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JOHN HARVEY

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fter seven actionďŹ lled and exciting years racing midgets on Australian and New Zealand Speedways, which included racking up feature wins and numerous titles, John Harvey followed his dream of crossing over to road racing where he went onto achieve triumphs in a wide and varied range of motorsport categories both internationally and throughout Australia. Harvey tells Motorsport

John Harvey and Colin Bond on their way to second place at Bathurst in 1976 in their Torana L34.

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Legends of his transition to road racing in the mid-sixties.

MY MOVE FROM SPEEDWAY ACROSS TO ROAD RACING

I always wanted to make the move from the dirt tracks across to road racing. Back in the 1950s, Bathurst at Easter time was a huge motorsport event, the people that won the races were Reg Hunt, Bill Patterson, Bib Stillwell, Stan Jones and Lex Davison as they were all relatively wealthy people. Reg Hunt turned the whole

sport around in Australia, as prior to that people built specials, if you wanted to go racing you gathered the required components, engine and etc and constructed your own race car. There were no factory cars as such and when he brought the Maserati 250F to town that triggered a mammoth change and so Patto, Stillwell, Jones, Davo etc. all had to follow suit.

Here I was a young kid of 15 or 16 thinking I wanted to get into motor racing and how could I do it and match these guys. The opportunity to enter

the sport was via Speedway and that was the route that I took. I always had in my mind that I would make the move and in 1964 after seven years on the dirt I did it as there were more opportunities in road racing.

At the time I was working at Ron Phillips Car Sales in Sydney as a sportscar salesman, I actually got the job through Brisbane speedcar star Blair Shepherd who also ran a successful car business – he told Ron that I would be an asset for him. Ron had never been to a race meeting and the first time that he

went to the Speedway he said it was the most dangerous stuff that he had ever seen due to the number of crashes that he witnessed. He said that I had better get you out of this – would you like to go road racing?

He decided that he would get Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald and we would get a Morris Mini Cooper S as it would be a good way to start running up against Melbourne’s Peter (Skinny) Manton and local hotshot Brian Foley. We selected an Austin Cooper S out of the Herald and went and bought it off the bloke and took it over to Foley’s place and said here “hot this up as we want it to go as good as yours”. I made my debut at the Hume Weir circuit and then ended up knocking off both Foley and Manton in the first 12-months in the car.

I had a few good races with Pete Geoghan and his mighty Ford Mustang, finishing only half a headlight-rim behind him at Sydney’s Warwick Farm and Oran Park circuits – on the big tracks he had plenty of stick. During 1965 I had mentioned to Ron that I was happy racing the Cooper S, but my real aim was to be in openwheelers.

GETTING INTO THE OPENWHEELERS

Ron mentioned to me that if I won the Ron Flockhart Memorial Trophy, which was an extremely prestigious Mini race held at Melbourne’s Sandown Raceway, he would order a Brabham openwheeler racecar. “Consider it done

Sir” was my response. We thought we had Peter Manton’s measure, but when we arrived at the circuit we learnt that the Neptune Racing Team consisting of him plus Norm Beechey and Jim McKeown had gone to Perth for a promotional race meeting at Wanneroo.

I broke his lap record and won the race and later that night I managed to get onto Ron and told him of the team’s success. My next comment was “What about the Brabham?”

He responded by saying that he would order it the following night with a call through to the Brabham factory in England. I then drove through the night back to Sydney – that was good practice for me as we all raced up and down the highways towing our racecars to or from the race meetings – no large transporters, aircraft flights or mobile telephones in those day. We ordered the car from Ron Tauranac at Brabham and then found out that there was a delay as we were a bit naive and thought we would get the thing in three weeks.

We happened to be at Calder Raceway and Ron was telling Bib Stillwell about the delay in getting the new car. Bib immediately said that he could solve the problem and Ron asked how. Bib mentioned that he had chassis number one, which was a similar car to the unit that Ron had ordered, a Brabham BT14 powered by a 1.5-litre Ford engine, plus it had only done a couple of races and was sitting in Bib’s pit. We had a look at it and Ron mentioned that he ❯

Left to right: John Harvey, David Parsons, Larry Perkins and Peter Brock after HDT finsished one-two at Bathurst in 1984.

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Harvey says some of his best years were spent racing Touring Cars with Brock.

had already paid Brabham a deposit; however, Bib said he had an account with them and he would take that amount off the price of the car.

Ron ventured back across the pits and said to our mechanic Peter Molloy and myself that he wanted to see the car run before buying it. Bib also had his 2.5litre Brabham there and it was painted identically as all his cars were – all carrying #6 on the nose. I said to Peter that Bib will probably win the Formula 2 race in the BT14 but you never know, but we both knew that he would win the Formula Libre in a canter. When Bib was in the F2 race we didn’t tell Ron, which he went on to win anyway, we waited for the Formula Libre race and grabbed him out of the Shell tent and took him up on the mound to watch the action – the flag dropped and Bib disappeared with Peter and I telling Ron he had to buy the car ASAP before he changed his mind.

We took possession of the car in late 1965 and the next year they combined the Formula 2 category with the 38

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“For the ’67 season we shoehorned a 2.5litre Repco V8 into the back of the BT14.” mainstream Gold Star machinery and I had a few podium finishes during ’66 up against the 2.5-litre cars. I actually won the Mallala Gold Star round in South Australia as the 2.5-litre teams had boycotted the event due to a dispute over prize money or tow money. I won the ’66 Australian Formula 2 Championship so we decided to put a 1860cc (1.86-litre) engine in the car as I was only a couple of points behind series leader Spencer Martin and I was in the running to win the Gold Star in my rookie season. There was a delay in sourcing the appropriate crankshaft out of the United Kingdom so I ran a 1650cc engine and qualified fourth.

Kevin Bartlett and Frank Gardner tore

off to contest their own race while Spencer fended off advances from me.

I shadowed him for the whole race hoping that I would be able to get past at some stage. He finished third and won the title and I was second overall in the series, which was extremely pleasing.

For the ’67 season we shoehorned a 2.5-litre Repco V8 into the back of the BT14 and Peter had done all of his calculations on running 13-inch wheels and tyres after promises from Dunlop that they would be able to supply the appropriate rubber. At the 11th hour they told us that 13-inch tyres would not be available and only 15-inch units would be available in the widths that we required. We had to source and fit 15inch wheels and we could never get the chassis quite right even though I won the Diamond Trophy at Oran Park.

At the end of the season Ron decided to give the sport away and Spencer Martin retired after winning back-toback Gold Star titles and through our mutual sponsorship from Shell I joined Bob Jane’s team as he was looking for a

JOHN HARVEY

driver and I was seeking a fulltime drive.

was flung around like a rag doll, hitting the ground as the car tumbled over and OVER 200KMH CARTWHEEL AT over as I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, my BATHURST WITH NO SEATBELTS legs were trapped by the steering wheel.

After the 1968 Tasman Series Bob I was out like a light in intensive care at purchased the BT23E Repco V8 that Bathurst Hospital then spent another Jack Brabham raced and then the team two weeks there before spending 10 headed off to Bathurst for the opening months recovering from the crash. round of the Gold Star Series on the In those days seatbelts were not Mount Panorama road circuit. I had a mandatory, even in the touring cars few problems with the car during the first you didn’t have to have belts or rollbars practice session and we worked on them fitted, if they were fitted in a car you in preparation for qualifying. Coming would be quite happy to wear them. down into Forest’s Elbow there was not I always wore seatbelts after coming a concrete wall in sight, there were trees through the Speedway era where they and the rock face was just as it had been were pretty rudimentary in the early ’50s; carved out years earlier and the track then in the ’60s we wore full-harnesses surface was pretty ordinary to say the least plus it was pouring with rain. Leo Geoghan crashed in the earlier session and managed to limp away from the wrecked Lotus 39 Repco V8. The car was badly damaged after spearing off through some trees but not completely totalled.

I believe I was on the out lap for qualifying when my right rear suspension upright broke as I was going through the fast section between Reid Park and McPhillamy Park in fourth gear at around 200 kilometres per hour. The car immediately veered slightly and then the rear dug into the wet surface before it started cartwheeling down the track. I

and had rollbars yet they still weren’t mandatory in single seaters. I started wearing them when I was driving Ron’s Brabham in the 1.5-litre championship; even Jackie Stewart (later 1969, ’71 and ’73 World Formula One Champion) who was one of the great movers and shakers in the Formula One scene at that time was an advocate for the nonfitment of seatbelts in their openwheelers.

I was living in Sydney at the time and Bob’s team was based in Melbourne and when they arrived at the track the seatbelts hadn’t been fitted, as they needed me in the new car for correct positioning and alignment. They ❯ mentioned that they could fit them

Harvey had racked up plenty of wins in speedway before moving into road racing.

Harvey had one of his biggest crashes in his Repco Brabham at Bathurst.

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JOHN HARVEY

that night, which was the Saturday night, and I could qualify without them – what could I say. That was my biggest accident in terms of hurting myself. In fact it is the only time that I was injured.

I got upside down once in seven years of Speedway racing and walked away from that crash.

and at the rear they were out on the suspension uprights. It was crazy as they should have been both fitted to the chassis or the uprights; surprisingly it wasn’t too bad to drive and I qualified reasonably well.

The really awful thing about the meeting was that my Bob Jane teammate Bevan Gibson was killed on Conrod RETURN TO BATHURST 12 MONTHS Straight in an Elfin 400 V8 Repco LATER AND TEAMMATE IS KILLED Sportscar during Sunday’s feature open After both Leo’s and my horrifying Sportscar race. The evening prior he crashes on the top of the Mountain the complained that the front of the car was previous year the organisers (Australian lifting coming over the last hump on Racing Drivers Club) had re-surfaced Conrod Straight. He offered me a drive the roadway and installed a wooden of the car and I declined, as he wanted safety fence to stop any cars spearing to fit winglets in an attempt to remedy off into the trees and scenery. Prior to the problem in readiness for the race heading to Bathurst I competed in the the next afternoon. I mentioned that Sandown round of the Tasman Series you have to test these new aerodynamic and the car overheated and I recorded aids as you could go the wrong way and a DNF. I didn’t have any concerns make it worse, so my advice was to lift about going back to Mount Panorama off the throttle as he approached the for the Gold Star round, as far as I was hump and that would reduce the speed concerned the car broke and now it had and make the nose stick and reduce the been completely rebuilt by Bob Britten amount of air passing under the car. at Renmax. By that stage we had wings Frank Matich was leading in his on the car and the way that they had Matich SR3 V8 Repco and had some fitted them was wrong. The front wing fuel pressure problems and Bevan was mounted on the chassis rails near started to catch him and thought he the inner suspension pickup points so had a chance of winning the race. you had to have higher rate springs as He gained a tow down Conrod and you were getting this extra down force forgot about everything that I told

Harvey in his Repco Brabham at Oran Park in 1970.

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him and pulled out just before the last hump and he took off and kept going skywards. (Gibson’s car was travelling at 270 kilometres per hour as it blewover like a Formula One powerboat and landed upside down with Gibson trapped below). It would have been like switching a light off for him. The wreckage slid all the way down to Murray’s Corner.

After his burnout wreck had been removed we started the (160 kilometre) Gold Star race. I had to pass the spot where Leo and I had crashed 12 months earlier, and then the crash marks and fire extinguisher foam at the end of Conrod Straight (from Gibson’s crash).

The starter held our cars for 30-seconds or more on the line and they started to overheat while Jack Brabham’s mechanics rectified a problem on his machine. Eventually we were let go and Jack came from fifth or sixth on the gird and took the lead on the first lap.

I couldn’t stay with him, so I finished second behind his latest Brabham racecar. It was a pretty boring race, as I had no one dicing with me and every lap we had to pass through Bevan’s crash mess and the extinguisher foam. After the race we were all happy to get out of the place, as it had been a couple of bad years for Bob.

HOLDEN DEALER TEAM AND TOURING CARS

My time racing the Marlboro Holden Dealer Team cars was mostly enjoyable, first in 1976 with Harry Firth and the Torana L34 before John Sheppard took over the reins in ’78 and we were in brand-new and immaculate A9Xs. Peter Brock came across from Bill Patterson’s operation and we were the lead drivers under Sheppo’s guidance.

Over the next couple of seasons things went well with Peter winning the ’78 Australian Touring Car Championship while Charlie O’Brien and I won the Rothmans 500 at Sydney’s Oran Park Raceway despite running out of fuel. I had to run across the infield to grab a churn of fuel and a funnel then make my way back to the car – we lost around 12-minutes (five-laps) and ended up clawing our way back to win.

That year saw the start of a 10-year association with Peter, and then in 1980 he took over MHDT and also started to build the first of the Holden Dealer Team Commodores. My role in those days was as the second team driver plus I groomed our new co-drivers, the likes of Charlie O’Brien, Ron Harrop and David ‘Skippy’ Parsons plus help develop the HDT cars. We both attended Holden’s new car launches plus

Harvey in his speedway days at Liverpool Raceway.

“I finally managed to stand on the top of the Bathurst 1000 podium in ‘83 with Peter and Larry Perkins.” dealer functions and took in plant tours plus our regular racing activities – they were pretty hectic times.

After finishing second at Bathurst (1000) in ’76, I finally managed to stand on the top of the Bathurst 1000 podium in ’86 with Peter and Larry Perkins. Peter’s car broke early in the race and as was the norm then the main teams cross-entered all of their drivers in their cars. I was teamed with Peter’s brother Phil, but he never got an opportunity to get behind the wheel of the #25 Commodore. I was running second behind Allan Grice when they took over the car, finally I got a Bathurst victory, but I did feel sorry for Phil. It was quite an emotional event that year as Dick Johnson speared off the track and crashed his Falcon heavily in the trees at the top of the Mountain during the Top Ten Shootout.

My association with Peter ended in

1987 when General Motors withdrew their support of HDT, mainly over the fitment of the Energy Polarizers to the HDT road cars. That year saw me racing in the inaugural World Touring Car Championship with Allan Moffat in his Rothmans-sponsored VL Commodore. We won the Monza round after finishing seventh, the six factory BMW M3s in front of us were all disqualified for illegal body panels.

However, the race I enjoyed the most was the famous Spa 24-Hour race at the Spa Francorchamps Circuit in Belgium.

Sydneysider Tony Mulvihill joined Allan and I for the race, but he wasn’t quick enough and failed to make the qualifying cut. I took Allan by surprise when I said “You beauty, that’s the best news I have heard, we both know that he is out of his depth and will cost us valuable time during the race.” The Ford Sierras and the M3s were ahead of us, and it rained for something like 16 or 17 hours and they started to experience problems while we just changed race suits which were soaking wet and kept moving forward. After the 24-hours we were to finish fourth behind three BMWs and that was a magnificent result considering the well-funded factory outfits that were competing in the series. By far that was my most enjoyable endurance race experience on a truly fantastic circuit. ML MotorSportLegends

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STORY BY BARRY OLIVER PICTURES BY WWW.AUTOPICS.COM.AU

WILD WEATHER AND CAR RACING Veteran commentator Barry Oliver relives his most memorable races

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BARRY OLIVER

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otor racing by its very nature is a complex sport for many reasons and not surprisingly controversy frequently becomes the focus of attention.

You only have to look at last year’s Grand Prix season as a recent example where the on-track efforts were almost overshadowed by the back room shenanigans.

Motor racing in Australia has not been immune from controversy with two events in the early nineties going into the annals of motor racing history to be amongst the most controversial and debated.

The Australian Grand Prix held on the November 3, 1991 in Adelaide will long be remembered as the shortest Grand Prix in Formula One history and most likely one of the wettest ever.

It’s indelibly etched in my memory simply because I got to do the on-

course commentary for the entire 15 laps before officialdom stepped in and stopped the race.

So that all of the members of the commentary team could be involved in the race call a roster system was drawn up and my segment was to be the first 20 laps working with GP series commentator Bob Constanduros.

In the 1989 race conditions became so bad that half the field of 26 cars crashed so the race was stopped after 70 laps and in 1991 the conditions were ❯

Senna was a master in the wet, but even he was keen to see the race stopped early in 1991.

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Senna also had plenty to gain by ensuring the race was stopped while he was in the lead.

equally as bad.

The problem occurred because the drainage was inadequate to accommodate the massive downpour and large puddles formed on the course as well as rivers across the road causing the cars to aquaplane.

So why did the race go ahead in 1991?

It seems television and commercial considerations won the day and nobody objected strongly enough; in contrast to 1989 when Alain Prost had raised his own storm on the grid and then withdrew from the race.

In 1991 Ayrton Senna had captured pole position in his McLaren Honda, and with teammate Gerhard Berger alongside, they were keen to score a onetwo finish to wrap up the all important Manufacturers’ championship.

And, of course, by starting from pole position, rain master Senna simply had to lead into the first corner and he was almost assured of a win as the opposition 44

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be red flagged.

On the 15th lap Nigel Mansell crashed while in second place and Senna signaled for the race to be stopped.

Bruynseraede obliged, but claimed he had made the decision to red flag the race as Mansell had failed to give any indication that he was okay and at that time the official procedure was that if a driver required attention in his car the race would be red flagged.

What had been ignored was that two laps earlier there had been a three-car pile-up on Brabham Straight involving Jean Alesi ,Nicola Larini and Michael would not get an opportunity to pass due Schumacher. to the conditions and the blinding spray.

Track-side officials and a recovery Race Director and official starter, vehicle were in attendance, but Roland Bruynseraede, was the man in amazingly the race continued with cars the hot seat and it seems there was a deal hurtling past the scene in the blinding done with Senna that if the Brazilian felt spray and with aquaplaning almost a the conditions at some point were too given. dangerous he would wave his arm as he It was an incredibly dangerous situation crossed the line signaling for the race to and the questions came thick and fast.

It’s indelibly etched in my memory simply because I got to do the on course commentary for the entire 15 laps before officialdom stepped in and stopped the race.

BARRY OLIVER

Why wasn’t the race stopped for the three car pile up and more to the point why was it started in the first place.?

The normally placid Ricardo Patrese was sufficiently incensed that he stormed up to race control when it was over calling the race a farce.

As per the regulations the race was declared at the end of lap 14 with the top six drivers awarded half points.

For Senna it was his seventh win for the season and the 33rd of his career while Mansell had to console himself with second in the race and the championship after winning five of the rounds.

Third place in the race went to Berger followed by Nelson Piquet in the Benetton Ford ,Patrese in the second Williams Renault and Gianni Morbidelli in the Ferrari.

Mansell turned the tables the following year with a rampaging run that saw the Williams Renault driver finally take out the title-scoring nine wins.

Eleven months later on the October 4, 1992, Bathurst was the venue for one of the most bizarre and controversial races in the history of the mountain classic with the weather again a determining factor.

In the lead up to the Toohey’s 1000

Winfield Racing team boss Fred Gibson was at loggerheads with CAMS over their efforts to slow down the all conquering Nissan GTRs. CAMS had imposed a savage weight penalty which Gibson said would compromise the safety of the cars and CAMS had also imposed ceilings on turbo boost and the compression ratio.

Gibson was incensed to the point of threatening to withdraw the cars, but then he decided to take the matter to the

There were plenty of questions to be asked after the 1991 AGP, but most of them were directed at the officials rather than the race winner.

supreme court.

CAMS won and the restrictions remained which caused the normally amiable Gibson to adopt a certain arrogance and bitterness towards the sport’s ruling body.

During the week Gibson requested a small increase in boost pressure “to compensate for the height of the mountain above sea level which is costing us 40 kilowatts.”

He got no joy from CAMS, but it did cause some laughter in pit lane.

I remember Gibson saying that: “It’s a handicap race this year. I suppose if I got a Falcon or a Commodore CAMS will handicap us again.”

His bitterness wasn’t helped when the lead car was only third fastest in qualifying and particularly as the Dick Johnson Ford Sierra was clearly quicker.

Forty-seven cars started the race with the Brock Commodore immediately stranded with a broken tailshaft and then with less than 20 laps completed the rain arrived forcing all but the 4WD Nissans to pit for wets.

At 30 laps Mark Skaife pitted for fuel, wets and a driver change and Godzilla streaked away. ❯ Shortly after the focus of attention

The Adelaide track was so slippery in the wet that not even Senna was comfortable.

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BARRY OLIVER

The Nissan GTR was a rocket in the dry and was thought to be unstoppable, even in the wet, but Bathurst '92 brought that theory unstuck.

turned to Conrod straight with the Denny Hulme B&H BMW parked against the wall.

From my commentary position at Skyline, I could see the car and I remember thinking at the time there was something terribly wrong.

Later news came through that the 1967 World Champion had died as the result of a massive heart attack.

As the race progressed the Nissans built up a solid lead with Johnson trying to stay in touch in third spot.

Then on lap 140 a storm hit the Mountain so quickly that it took most by surprise and suddenly there was chaos with the Commodore of Bill O’Brien, the Corolla of Neal Bates and the Commodore of Andrew Harris crashing on the exit of Forrest’s Elbow.

While everyone was watching that scene unfold the lead Nissan with Jim Richards at the wheel came across the top of the Mountain with the left-front wheel 46

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pointing at 45 degrees to the direction of travel after tagging the wall near the Cutting.

It was a devastating moment for Richards who was now aware that his close friend Denny Hulme had died and now he had thrown away an almost certain victory to back up their 1991 win.

When he reached Forrest’s Elbow the car slid off the road on the exit into the other crash to be joined moments later by the Scott and Jason Bargwanna Corolla.

With the track now blocked, Race director Tim Schenken had no choice but to red flag the race and because more than three quarters of the scheduled distance had been completed the race was declared.

Few people at this point would have realized that the stricken Nissan, which had failed to complete the lap was in fact the winning car and the stunned look on Skaife’s face told the story.

The rules stated that when a race is

red flagged short of full race distance but after 75 percent of the scheduled race distance had been completed the results will be declared at the end of the previously completed lap which meant the Nissan had won.

The gut wrenching devastation in the Winfield team suddenly turned to absolute jubilation, but what followed was to go down in motor sport history as a sad reflection on the sport.

The race fans primed with the sponsors product and miffed that Godzilla had won instead of a Ford or a Holden launched a scathing tirade against the winning duo hurling missiles and abuse.

The situation wasn’t helped any with Johnson launching a broadside along the lines of “how can a car win the event when it’s crashed and doesn’t complete the lap? We were robbed”.

The Johnson/John Bowe Sierra had previously passed the second Nissan GTR of Neil Crompton and Anders

It may have been all smiles before the race at the PR shoot, but it was far from a happy victory dias.

Richards was deeply hurt by the reception from the fans to the extent that he uttered those infamous words, "You're a pack of arseholes. This will live with me for a long time".

SO WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN?

Olofsson and as the lead car on the road when the race was stopped Johnson felt victory was theirs.

Richards was deeply hurt by the reception from the fans to the extent that he uttered those infamous words, “You’re a pack of arsholes. This will live with me for a long time”.

Skaife was clearly shocked by Richards response and admitted at Richards’ 60th birthday last year that he had no idea what he was going to say.

Subsequently Richards was invited to have “a chat” with a senior CAMS official and while he was not required to make a formal apology he did apologize to anyone he may have offended.

It was a sad finish to what had been a dramatic and tragic day and a result that polarized not only the motor sport fraternity but the public as well.

On a lighter note some time later Tshirts appeared with the message: “I’m an ML arsehole. Jim Richards told me so”.

In December 1979 I was at a Christmas function in Launceston and met Angus Richard who at that time was one of three commentators at Symmons Plains meetings.

In the course of our discussions I told him I felt one of his off-siders was past his use-by date and he responded by suggesting that I get involved as he felt that I had very good knowledge of the sport.

Nothing more was said but the following March at the touring car round on the Saturday afternoon Angus spotted me in the spectator area opposite the control tower and called me over to come to the PA box.

When I climbed through the manhole into the box before I had time to ask any questions he introduced me and handed me an old microphone.

We spent a few minutes having a very general discussion about the meeting and then he suddenly switched off his

microphone and removed his headset telling me that I was “on my own and I’ll see you in a while".

He returned 20 minutes later and told me that I had a spot on the team for the Sunday primarily as a gopher to do reports between races.

I was then invited by the Hobart Sporting Car Club to be part of the commentary team at the upcoming Baskerville meeting and it just snowballed from there.

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FOGES’

Flashback Phillip Island – one of the world’s best

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mong the great road racing circuits of the world, Mount Panorama and Phillip Island rank right up there.

Of the classic tracks still in active use, only Germany’s Nurburgring Nordschleife and Belgium’s SpaFrancorchamps have more history and more sphincter-tightening turns.

But there’s not much in it. The Mountain and the Island are worldrenowned for their charms and challenges, and any driver worth his salt aspires to experiencing them.

Racers across the globe have all heard of the wonders Downunder and revere them by reputation alone as true driver’s tracks.

The Nordschleife is the undisputed king of road courses, a relentless ribbon of tarmac that is the ultimate test of the melding of man and machine.

Spa-Francorchamps is still a driver’s delight even though it has been shortened and sanitised from its glory days, swooping and sweeping through the Ardennes forest.

Mount Panorama is tortuous and treacherous, climbing and plunging across a hillside full of buckled bends, blind brows and beckoning barriers.

Phillip Island’s feat is combining the majesty of its ocean-view location with a predominantly fast, flowing layout that demands respect and rewards measured daring.

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You may well wonder why I don’t rate the Monaco, Macau and Pau street courses among the most exulted circuits. For the very fact that they are temporary tracks converted annually from city streets.

They are anachronisms that have survived because of their unique locations and festival status of their events. They are the most challenging street circuits, for sure, but the challenge stems from their confines more than their configurations.

“Contemporary reports describe the roads as rough, dusty and narrow...”

Of course, the old Ring, the emasculated Spa and Bathurst’s Bald Hill all started life as public roads. But I make the distinction because they are fast, flowing permanent venues that combine olde worlde ambience with modern function and facilities.

The pertinent point is that Mount Panorama and Phillip Island bow only to the two most celebrated circuits on the planet in terms of pure driving pleasure and peril.

These are not tracks for the fainthearted or foolhardy. Despite safety precautions, they still have the

capacity to claim lives because risk is inherent in their challenge and their attraction.

Phillip Island is the youngest of the great circuits, hosting its first race meeting in December 1956. The course was carved, with some difficulty, around an undulating property bought by the Phillip Island Auto Racing Club (PIARC) in ’52.

But the heritage of racing on the island itself goes back much further.

What is regarded as the inaugural Australian Grand Prix was staged on public roads not far from the future circuit in March, 1928.

Originally known as the 100 Miles Road Race, the event was run on a 10.6 km rectangular dirt road course consisting of two long and two short straights (the latter just 1.6 km each) connected by 90-degree right-hand corners.

To say it was a rugged track is an understatement. Contemporary reports describe the roads as rough, dusty and narrow, making conditions in the race gruelling and hazardous.

The corners were sprayed liberally with used engine oil to damp down the dust, but on the straights, visibility was so poor that drivers followed the treetops through the billowing clouds of grit.

To make matters worse, they and their riding mechanics were pelted with flying stones from other competitors, while the blinding dust also resulted in

MARK FOGARTY THEN AND NOW

collisions.

It’s impossible to imagine how dirty, difficult and dangerous motor racing was back then.

The closed-road courses of the day were rutted routes, making the races torture tests that were as arduous as they were perilous.

The roads were lined with trees, ditches and, of course, spectators, and the cars were fast but fragile. They were prone to failures that would not only end their races, but very often the lives of the driver and/or passenger.

The sport required strength, stamina and bravery on an heroic scale and

year later simply billed as the 100 Miles Road Race. But popular history records it as the forerunner of the AGP, which is held to be the third oldest Grand Prix in the world behind the French and Italian grands epreuve.

Waite’s Seven lives on as a faithful replica incorporating the original car’s engine and gearbox. The only components to survive, they were found in separate locations more than a quarter of a century ago by longtime Austin Seven enthusiast and racer Graeme Steinfort.

I got an inkling of what an epic drive Waite’s must have been when

Mark Fogarty and car owner, Graeme Steinfort, with the Waite replica Austin Seven.

when they weren’t mesmerised by the impending danger, spectators must have marveled at the sheer skill and daring of the competitors.

The drivers were hustling and muscling machines that, even back then, had more power than their skinny, puncture-prone tyres could handle, barely contained by heavy steering, agricultural suspension and rudimentary braking.

Run over 16 laps for an actual total distance of 105 miles (168.95 km), the 1928 race that somehow in history became the first AGP was won by Captain Arthur Waite in a factorysupplied Austin Seven Sports, which survived the 168.95 km ordeal to beat an eclectic field that included a trio of more fancied Bugattis.

The event’s status is debated because a race on a speedway-style dirt oval in Goulburn was billed as the Australian Grand Prix in 1927.

Further questioning the Island’s longheld claim is the fact that its contest a

I squeezed behind the bus-like steering wheel of Steinfort’s famous reproduction before it starred in the VACC Cowes Cavalcade.

Held in conjunction with the Phillip Island Classic historic meeting in early March, the Cavalcade celebrated the 80th anniversary of the AGP, retracing the original course (now paved) just outside Cowes.

The Austin Seven was to Britain and the British Empire what the Model T Ford was to the USA. It was an affordable and dependable vehicle that helped put the UK on wheels in the ‘20s and ‘30s – and was also a mainstay of motor sport because its of light-weight chassis and sturdy components, which lent themselves to performance modifications.

Austin Seven racing is still popular in historic racing, although the pacesetting cars feature modern upgrades of key components to make them safer and more stable at the surprising speeds they can attain.

Known in Seven circles as the ‘Waite replica’, Steinfort’s tiny two-seater looks more like a jaunty jalopy than what was a state-of-the-art racer in the Roaring Twenties.

It rides high on tall, narrow spoked wheels barely covered by cycle ‘guards and its minimalist bodywork provides no protection from the elements – much less a crash.

Steinfort’s pride and joy incorporates all the necessary Seven chassis parts and running gear, clothed in a replica ‘boat-tail’ body reproduced from period photos.

The reincarnation of the good captain’s car is powered by the original’s supercharged four-cylinder side valve motor, which in refurbished form produces 50 kW from just 747 cc.

Remarkably, it can spin up to 6500 rpm, emitting a raucous rasp in the upper reaches of its rev range.

It drives through the original fourspeed ‘crash box’ transmission that, as well as lacking synchromesh to assist gearshift, is also without a reverse gear.

A few laps of the sinuous VACC Park kart track in the shadow of Melbourne’s Westgate Bridge didn’t allow me to open up the Waite replica – and given its period specifications, that’s probably just as well.

Although not as unwieldy or wayward as its vintage might suggest, even at slow speed it felt as if it could be a real handful on a proper racing circuit.

It is, after all, an ancient design riding on bicycle tyres and slowed by cable-operated seven-inch drum brakes. Being relatively featherweight, its spritely performance and unsophisticated suspension are enough to easily overwhelm both.

Just fitting into the cockpit was an exercise in contorting my long wheelbase frame. Once in, my legs fouled my hands when I turned the huge steering wheel and my big feet made operating the small floormounted pedals awkward.

Gear changes took a lot of getting used to because of the restricted space for my left foot and the reverse layout of the gearshift, the H pattern of which went from right to left.

You also have to double-declutch on the downshifts, but eventually I was able to co-ordinate my foot and hand MotorSportLegends

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to achieve semi-smooth changes.

The little blown motor is punchy, happily hauling through hairpins in third cog, and angry-ant loud.

The steering felt slow and loaded up into turns, but it was surprisingly accurate once you got used to its leaden directness. Similarly, the brakes had negligible feel and required firm pedal pressure to induce retardation.

Sitting right out in the breeze, the sensation of speed was way in excess of the actual pace.

Driving a piece of history such as the Waite replica on such a confined course doesn’t really do it justice. But it did give me an idea of the gladiatorial nature of race driving in the sport’s formative years.

Getting back to Phillip Island, the track was at its best during this year’s Classic, which was blessed with fine, sunny weather.

On such a day, it’s the Pebble Beach of motor sport, overlooking the rich azure of the Southern Ocean. Amid such a spectacular mix of sun, sea and speed, it’s hard to imagine that the Phillip Island circuit ever struggled for survival.

But the track that invented the production car race that became the Bathurst 1000, and will soon welcome back an annual 500 km V8 Supercar enduro, and is home to the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix closed twice in its colourful history.

The circuit’s construction was compromised by restricted access to the island. In the 1950s, there was no road bridge from San Remo, only a ferry that couldn’t carry heavy construction equipment.

The Armstrong 500 took such a toll on the track from 1960-62 that PIARC couldn’t afford to repair the crumbling course and the race was moved to Mount Panorama in ’63. The rest, as they say, is history.

Phillip Island was reopened in 1966 after muffler king and former champion racer Len Lukey bought the property, which he planned to redevelop around the circuit.

Long story short, the track still wasn’t up to the rigours of regular long distance races, and after hosting the 500K from 1971-77, it again became too badly broken up to continue and the property was turned over to sheep grazing.

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The track lay derelict until 1988, when it was rebuilt – this time with hardy Hotmix laid by road-making machinery brought over the bridge from the mainland – for the first world championship Australian Motorcycle GP in ’89.

The renewed circuit kept the character of the classic course, retaining the signature sweepers and undulations that make it such a test of a driver’s skill and intestinal fortitude.

The Phillip Island International Circuit complex was bought in 2004 by the Linfox Property Group, which has progressively upgraded the track’s safety and facilities.

It is returning to its endurance race roots with the revival of the Phillip

“Oddly, the races that standout... weren’t the 500Ks, but the F5000 ‘Gold Star’ rounds.”

Island 500, which has replaced Sandown as the Bathurst 1000 ‘warmup’ in September.

Although the third coming of the 500 at the Island has more to do with politics than reclaiming a part of V8 racing’s heritage, the track’s stature warrants a prestigious car-racing event.

My earliest memory of motor racing is seeing Vauxhalls, Vanguards, Holdens, Citroens, Mercedes-Benzes and longforgotten makes on TV in my grandfather’s den when I was a small child.

It was a telecast of one of the Armstrong 500s and although the black-and-white pictures were fuzzy and small, it obviously made a lasting impression. My obsession with motor racing didn’t start until ’69, but those grainy images probably sowed a latent seed of interest.

I watched telecasts of Phillip Island meetings in the early ‘70s and can still clearly recall John Harvey in Bob Jane’s McLaren M6B-Repco romping away with the Governor Phillip Trophy one Australia Day weekend.

Bizarrely, along with memories of the likes of Jane himself, Norm Beechey,

Ian Geoghegan, Peter Brock, Allan Moffat, Leo Geoghegan, Max Stewart and a host of their contemporaries across a wide range of categories, visions of Lionel Ayres’ beastly MRC and Phil Moore’s pretty Elfin 360 still stand out.

I also remember Moffat had one of his biggest crashes there in 1973, going off at the end of the main straight and piling his Falcon GT Hardtop into a copse.

Then there was the light plane that overshot the airstrip that used to be in the infield and landed almost upside down in the dam. I’m sure that made the front page of one of the newspapers.

As a young reporter in the mid1970s, I covered racing regularly at the Island before its second demise, often venturing trackside to take photos (a revelation that will amaze and amuse today’s snappers).

Oddly, the races that standout in my mind weren’t the 500Ks, but the F5000 ‘Gold Star’ rounds.

Not so much the races themselves, although I have it in my head that there was an epic battle in the ’76 event, but the very fact that those brutish single-seaters – all power and little protection – raced wheel-to-wheel while dodging ruts and rocks at harrowingly high speeds.

Watching the F5000s rumble and roar around the comparatively billiard table-smooth ‘new’ Island at the Classic meeting reminded me how heroic the likes of John Goss, Kevin Bartlett, Max Stewart, John McCormack and Johnnie Walker had been three decades ago.

With so much grunt, so little weight and a cockpit that may as well have been surrounded by tinfoil and papier mache, those blokes were fearless or foolish – or both.

Makes me wonder what the F5000 revivalists are thinking. Bless them, though, because the site and sound of a field of F5000s has such primal appeal.

And nowhere more so than at Phillip Island, which has retained its essence and frisson factor while moving ahead with the times.

Mark Fogarty has covered the sport at the highest levels during a varied international media career.

Foges still actively agitates modern day racers as Editor-At-Large of Auto Action magazine.

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